"What did he say?" asked Radonic, trying to break away from the hands of the men who were holding him, and from Mara Bellacic, who was bandaging up his wound.
"What do you care what he said?" replied Bellacic; "his slander only falls back upon himself, just as if he were spitting in the wind; it can harm neither you nor Milena."
"Oh, we shall meet again!" cried Radonic.
"We shall certainly meet, if ever you escape the Turkish gallows, or the Austrian prisons."
And as he uttered these last words, he disappeared in the darkness of the road.
CHAPTER XV
A COWARD'S VENGEANCE
When the pobratim returned to Budua they found the whole town divided into two camps, and, consequently, in a state of open war. Since the evening of the karvarina two parties had formed themselves, the Vranites and the Radonites. The first, indeed, were few, and did not consist of friends of Vranic, but simply of people who had a grudge, not only against Radonic, but against Bellacic and the twenty-four men of the jury, who were accused of peculation. On the whole, public opinion was bitter against the tailor, for, after having made peace with his enemy, he had tried to murder him; then —as if this had not been enough—he had gone on the morrow and given warning to the police that Radonic, who had cowardly murdered his brother, had returned to Budua, and was walking about the streets unpunished; moreover, that the heyduk had threatened to murder him, so he came to appeal for protection.
This happened when Budua had just been incorporated with the Austrian empire, and the people, jealous of their customs, looked upon the protection of the government as an officious intermeddling with their own private affairs, and strongly resented their being treated as children unable to act for themselves.
Although a few crimes had been left unpunished, simply not to rouse at once the general feeling against its present masters, still the new jurisdiction was bent upon putting a stop to the practice of the karvarina; and to make this primitive country understand that, under a civilised form of government, people paid taxes to be protected by wise and just laws; therefore, it was the duty of a well-regulated police to discover and punish equitably all offences done to any particular man.